Line Is Larry Palmer’s Labor of Love

The Palisades High football team will go as far as the line takes it this season — at least that’s the way Larry Palmer sees it.

He should know. Entering his fourth year as the Dolphins’ offensive line coach, Palmer understands that games are won and lost in the trenches and success is predicated on protecting your quarterback. In fact, that was his primary job in 1978 when he was the starting left tackle at Granada Hills High, where he blocked for a gunslinging signal-caller named John Elway.

“I was a 6-foot-1, 185-pound senior when John was a junior – I protected his blind side,” Palmer recalled. “And our line coach was Leo Castro. Small world, huh?”

Castro later became the athletic director at Pali High and served as head football coach from 2004-06 when current assistants Ray Elie and Christian Clark were on the team. Palmer joined Perry Jones’ staff in 2012 and was retained by Tim Hyde when he took over the next season.

“Larry’s got great knowledge and the kids really respect him,” Hyde said. “I mean, how many guys can say they played with a Hall of Fame quarterback?”

Palmer grew up in Northridge and has vivid memories of Elway, whose father wanted him to play in Coach Jack Neumeier’s spread offense. Palmer made the All-Mid-Valley League first team as a senior when Granada Hills reached the City semifinals.

“When John moved to the neighborhood we heard he had a rocket arm, but he was this lanky, baby-faced kid,” Palmer remembered. “As an athlete he was a man among boys. He played baseball too and had a 90 to 95-mile-per-hour fastball. And I’ll tell you what – whether you were playing Risk, ping pong or horse – he was the most competitive guy I’ve ever known. He lived 10 or 12 houses down from me and he hated to lose. He’d beat you at anything.”

Palmer started as a cold caller for Dean Witter while still in school at UCLA. He  began his career as a 21-year-old intern and in 1996 moved to Denver, where he watched Bronco games from Elway’s private box at Mile High Stadium. He retired as a financial advisor after 33 years on Wall Street. Going into his 34th year he’s the Managing Director and Senior Advisor to the leadership team that runs wealth management for Morgan Stanley.

“When it comes to my career, I was in the right place at the right time,” said Palmer, who has been hooked on football since he was 8 or 9 when his dad (who went to USC) took him to O.J. Simpson’s last game at the Los Angeles Coliseum. “I vowed if I ever came back to LA I’d live near the beach in the Palisades and here I am.”

Palmer can vividly remember Elway making him and six other Granada Hills teammates a promise a few years before he retired.

“It was at a preseason game in August and John pointed to us and said ‘If I ever get in the Hall of Fame you guys are gonna be there,’” Palmer said. “He was true to his word because I was at his induction ceremony.”

Though the sport has changed, as have some of the rules, being a lineman is about brotherhood and Palmer has embraced the challenge of motivating a new generation of players.

“The first thing I noticed my first year here is that the kids are faster and stronger, the coaching is more sophisticated and schemes are more complex,” Palmer said. “Tim’s really turned things around and instilled a sense of pride in the program. Last year, our record didn’t reflect how good we were. We should be even better this season. I’m just a volunteer but it’s a privilege to be out here. It got to the point where I started wanting to be on the field more than in the office.”

Palmer, now 55, is hardly slowing down with age. A member of the Jonathan Club since 1989, he still likes to surf, he sits on the board of the California State Parks Foundation and in July he started as a board member for the LA5 Rotary Club. He lives on Bollinger Drive with his 11-year-old English white labrador Tex.

Coaching, however, has become his passion, even if it’s at a school his alma mater played – and beat – back in the day.

“The irony of me coaching at Pali is that we beat them in the [City] quarterfinals 28-27 in a California tiebreaker when we had John [Elway] and they had [future NFL quarterback] Jay Schroeder.”

For someone who loves football as much as Palmer does, getting a call from someone he’s coached  or seeing the looks on his players’ faces on game night makes all the time and effort worth it.

“Coaching is teaching and O-line guys are smart,” Palmer said. “The O-line is typically one unit. They don’t ask for glory, they’re accountable every day and it’s a privilege to work with them.”

— Steve Galluzzo